Listening to: BBC Radio One
From consumers to Users: Shifting the Deeper Structures of Regulation Toward Sustainable Commons and User Access - Y. Benkler (2000)
Even though I applaud the optimistic viewpoint that Benkler obviously wants to share with his reader I wonder if there shouldn’t be some sort of regulatory body. Surely there are also sides to the Internet that shouldn’t get out of hand or even be completely banned: child pornography, etc.
Q Are we utterly subject to the will of large ICT-corporations such as AOL?
A Even though laws have become stricter I’m sure there will always be people or groups or even entire networks which will figure out a way to ‘cheat the system’. Ironically, with higher security measures it becomes even more attractive to hackers and underground movement to ‘break the code’.
There have always been and will probably always be underground movements trying to struggle free from the grip of mainstream multi-nationals. A good example of this us the free open source software like LINUX competing with software giant Microsoft. Although Microsoft still pretty much holds a monopoly position on the market, LINUX has been around for quite a while now and it doesn’t look like it won’t be able to compete with the Bill Gates emporium for years to come.
Should it become impossible to use the Internet to express oneself or participate in the public domain, I’m sure people will find new ways of keeping the debate alive.
The future of ideas: The fate of the commons in a connected world - L. Lessig (2001)
Referring to Amazon.com Lessig writes: ‘(…) I doubt any of your friends knows your tastes in music and books as well as Amazon knows mine. Amazon knows, based on real data’ (page 11-12). I’m worried that this technology will narrow peoples perception of what is out there if they completely rely on Amazon to tell them what they want and need. Shouldn’t it be up to ourselves to decide what we want? I have a very eclectic taste in music: rock, pop, classical, dance, drum&bass, jazz, etc. Besides that it is subject to change as I get older. I don’t think Amazon could capture my music taste in a few hyperlinks.
I would have liked to have seem some solutions as to how the 'old' can be succesfully integrated with the 'new'. There must be ways to reconcile the producers with the consumers.
I also have a little question regarding some of the content of the article:
What does e2e stand for exactly?
Watching the Internet - D. Harries (2002)
It is a little unclear to me what the difference is between interactive games and 'viewsing' sites such as the one from De Bus. Aren't they both interactive? Aren't using the Internet and viewsing the Internet the same thing?
Harries writes '(...) when you consider consider the amount of interactivity involved in accessing a Web page through a browser (...) you begin to realise how little interactivity there really is'. I absolutely agree. It seems interactivity nowadays is seen as the ultimate goal as if interactivity is all we as 'viewsers' could wish for or want out of media. Sometimes being a passive viewer can be just as entertaining. How else can we explain the success of computer games adapted to the silver screen such as the Tomb Raider films?